


The Trouble We're In

by Ree_Dragon



Series: Beyond Their Star [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Blue Pearl is mute, Blue being in over her head, Gen, Supermarket mayhem?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 03:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10653651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ree_Dragon/pseuds/Ree_Dragon
Summary: Most of the gems are away from home, leaving Blue Pearl, Amethyst, and Lapis with a chore list that's almost complete.  Should be no big deal, right?  After all, how hard can a single shopping trip be?





	The Trouble We're In

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know Blue Pearl has a voice in canon. The series started before that reveal, and I'm leaving her mute for now. Waiting for the stories to tell me what they want to do with her, there. ^.^; And...as far as I know, the store they go to is non-canon. The idea amused me, so I went with it.
> 
> I hope this is okay (if I got even a light chuckle out of any of you, I'll count it as a win. >D). I kind of rushed to get it out before my trip (which starts this week -.-). I think I mentioned this in a previous story (or maybe it was a comment?), but my wife and I have a trip from Texas to Oregon for the rest of April and the entire month of May, and then the move to the same place as soon after we get home as possible (we're getting things set up without having to worry about animals and then coming back for our pets and a proper goodbye to my wife's parents). I probably will not be writing Steven Universe stories again until I'm moved and settled, which should be sometime in June, if all goes well. Sorry guys, but moving from Texas to Oregon is quite an ordeal. I WILL be getting back to things, of course. I have maybe two more one-shots I want to do before I get to my next multi-chapter story, and I have ideas and started-but-unfinished fics that take place after all that, so I'm nowhere close to quitting. I just need to focus on RL for a couple months.

It certainly was quiet, today.  Greg had taken Steven and Pearl somewhere and most of the other gems were either in the temple or off on missions, leaving her and Lapis to watch over the place until someone returned.  She didn’t mind Lapis’ company - far from it, the darker blue gem was probably one of her closest friends - but she was in a…contemplative mood today, which left Blue pretty much on her own.

Fortunately, Pearl had left behind a task list, and she’d been occupying herself with that while waiting for one of the other gems to return.  When Steven returned, he’d find his room perfectly tidied and organized, with the floor swept, the surfaces scrubbed, and the windows cleaned…unless Amethyst returned first.

Most of his laundry had been cleaned and put away as well, with the last load drying in the machine below her.  She’d started the laundry first and completed all the other chores while waiting for loads to finish, but Steven had an almost overwhelming amount of clothes, and they’d all gotten dirty in a mysterious ketchup and jelly incident that she was sure Amethyst had played some part in.  It was what she’d come to expect of the purple quartz - a weird mix of genuine empathy and inconsiderate chaos.  Not that she usually minded, though it did make certain aspects of life on Earth problematic.

The dryer beeped and stopped vibrating, and she slid off the machine to collect the laundry.  Once she’d managed this task - and taken care of the lint trap - she moved to the warp pad and re-entered the house.  The light faded, and she could see Lapis sitting on Steven’s bed and Amethyst standing near the sofa, smiling.  That only lasted a moment - the purple gem’s smile faded as she stared at her, and she ended up flopping down on the sofa a moment later.  Was she expecting Garnet and Peridot back already?  She knew Steven and Pearl would be gone until at least tomorrow, but Peridot’s note - scribbled hastily underneath Steven’s - had been vague, and the red and green gems could return home from their mission at any time.

Well…they’d get here when they got here  For now, she still had things to take care of.  She made her way to the coffee table and set the laundry basket - and herself - down beside it so she could start folding the garments.

A moment later, a shadow flew across the coffee table, and Lapis landed beside her.  Blue smiled at the darker gem, but Lapis didn’t seem to see - she’d sat down and joined in the folding, and seemed completely focused on the task.  Amethyst scooted to the floor to join them after that, and Blue offered her a smile, too, before focusing on the laundry again.  She would have been panicked about having help near the start of her stay here on Earth, but now she more-or-less welcomed it.  It felt…not quite wrong, but certainly off, even though she knew that was just the way things were done here.

And…it was nice, at least in the rare moments she felt safe thinking that way.  It was still hard to compare her old life to her new one, and even harder to try and decide which was better - especially when it seemed like the deepest part of herself was starting to shift her preferences - but every day that passed seemed to make everything a little easier.

“Is this all that’s left?”

Blue jumped - Lapis’ voice had been unexpected - and then turned to her, head tilted.  Had there been talking she missed out on?

“The laundry,” Lapis clarified.  “Is this the last of it?”

Oh!  Right.  They were folding.  Blue nodded and glanced into the basket.  She’d been absently folding while lost in thought, and with Lapis and Amethyst helping her, the basket was just about empty.  She set the folded shirt in her hands on top of the stack and then pulled the last shirt out of the basket.

“And the chore list?” Lapis asked as Blue started folding the shirt.

Blue frowned in thought, her gaze darting about the room.  Amethyst actually hadn’t dirtied anything today - the house was still practically spotless.  Just about everything had been done, though there was one chore she’d been saving…  She shook her head in answer to the darker blue gem and set the last shirt on top of the stack.

“What?!”  Amethyst’s voice cracked in her exclamation.  “The house practically sparkles!  What could possibly be left?”

Blue cringed at the tone, and then at her reaction to it.  She knew Amethyst was safe, and usually meant nothing bad by anything she said, but she was still a quartz, and Blue would always be a Pearl, no matter how many Pearl behaviors Steven and his team trained out of her.

“Blue?”  There was a hand on her shoulder, and Blue turned to see Lapis giving her a concerned look.

She shook her head and turned her attention to the list, focusing on it and calling it toward her.  Her gem and the list both started to glow, and the paper slipped under the magnet holding it to the fridge and flew toward her, but light items tended to be inaccurate ones, and it missed her hand entirely.  Instead, it smacked against Amethyst’s face, the upper right corner landing dangerously close to her eye.

Oops.

Lapis burst out laughing, and Amethyst glared insincerely at them both before snatching the paper away from her face and reading it.

“Groceries?”  Amethyst frowned.  “Didn’t Greg bring a whole bunch over yesterday?”

“He did,” Lapis responded.  “And then you decided to make that ‘everything burrito’, remember?”

“Ah…right.”  Amethyst stood and made her way to the fridge, opening the door. She studied the contents for a bit, grabbed something gross that looked suspiciously like mold, and tossed it in her mouth.  Blue did her best to hide her disgust at that and turned to Lapis, whose expression was unreadable.  Maybe she’d been with the Crystal Gems just long enough to get used to Amethyst’s eating habits…  Blue still had a ways to go.

“Yep.  Guess we’re going shopping.”  Amethyst looked around a moment before plucking another paper off the fridge - letting the magnet holding it there drop to the floor.

Lapis crossed her arms.  “’We’, huh?”

Amethyst shrugged and grinned at the darker blue gem.  “Well, if you really wanna stay here and keep moping, I won’t stop you.”  Amethyst shifted her gaze to Blue.  “I’m sure Blue won’t mind tagging along.  She has, what, fifty human friends by now?  I bet she’ll get to see at least one of them.”

“She has four,” Lapis corrected before Blue could respond.  Amethyst rolled her eyes, but Lapis didn’t seem to notice, as she kept talking.  “And one of them’s out of town with Steven.”

“Eh, there’s still the mailman and pizza twins, right?” Amethyst responded, heading to the door.  “If we’re gonna do this, we should probably head out before the good store closes.  You comin’ BP?”

Blue nodded and set the shirt she’d been holding on the stack.  She stood and tried to make her way to Steven’s closet so she could finish up the laundry first - they were pretty much done, and it’d be weird to leave it in this state - but Lapis grabbed her hand and shook her head.

“I’ll take care of it,” the darker blue gem said.  “Just go on out already so you can come back.”

Blue nodded and headed toward the door.  Amethyst led her outside, and the two gems made their way down to the beach.  From there, they moved from the sand to the boardwalk, and she soon caught sight of Jenny leaving Fish Stew Pizza with her friends.  She waved to the teens, smiling when the wave was returned.  She watched the trio until they climbed into the Pizza family car, but then a shape in the sky distracted her and she stared up as Lapis flew toward them.

“Get bored and lonely?” Amethyst greeted the darker blue gem with a grin as she landed beside them.

Lapis narrowed her eyes at the purple gem, and then stared past her in the direction they’d been heading.  “How much farther is it?”

“What, the store?”  At Lapis’ stiff nod, Amethyst gestured to the other side of town.  “There’s a market not far from here, but they close in about half an hour.  There’s only one other place I’m allowed in, anymore, so…we’re going to Fun-mart.”

“Fun…mart?”  Lapis focused on Amethyst, frowning.  “Does that have anything to do with Funland or the arcade?”

“I dunno.  Maybe.”  Amethyst shrugged and turned back around, walking down the path again.

Blue turned to Lapis as the darker blue gem let out an annoyed sigh.  Lapis shook her head and started walking, and Blue fell into step beside her, wondering why Amethyst wasn’t allowed in certain places.  Though now that she was thinking about it, it wasn’t all that surprising.  Amethyst didn’t seem to care about rules very much, after all.

A large building loomed just past the end of the road up ahead.  Amethyst sped up, and Blue had to sprint to keep up with her.  They walked between rows of cars to the entrance of the building, and Amethyst stopped and turned around, likely to see if they were still behind her.

Once Blue and Lapis caught up with Amethyst, they were led inside the building - past a few rows of odd metal carts - where hundreds of scents seemed to merge together into something undecipherable and less than pleasant.

“We’ll try to get through this as fast as we can so we can get home.”  Amethyst moved along the wall behind several lines of people.  “Come on, I’ll give you a real quick tour.”

Then she was gone, disappeared behind the crowds of shoppers cluttering the walkways.

Lapis snorted.  “Amethyst, hold up!”  She summoned her wings and flew after the purple gem.

Blue watched the two of them, frowning.  So much for that idea, it seemed…how was she supposed to find the other two gems in a place like this?  Shaking her head, she moved forward, doing her best to make her way through the crowd and keep an eye out for someone blue and someone purple.

“Blue?”

The pale gem looked around, spotting Jamie near the entrance to one of the nearby aisles.  She smiled and made her way over to him, happy to have found - or been found by - someone familiar.

Jamie returned her smile, though he looked more confused than happy.  “I’m glad to see you, but I thought gems didn’t need to eat…?  Or are you preparing for a special occasion of some kind?”

Blue shook her head, generating a hologram of Steven.

He stared at it a moment, and then nodded.  “Ah, I see.  Is he here?”

Blue shook her head again, and the Steven hologram broke apart.

“So it’s your turn to do the shopping today?” he guessed.

She nodded.  That was…accurate enough, she supposed, though she didn’t think the Crystal Gems really took this chore in turns.

He seemed to think things over for a moment.  “Well…would you like some help?  I know this isn’t a thing you’re overly familiar with, and - honestly - this place confused me a bit when it first opened up.  I mean, who would put candy and cereal in the same aisle?  Although…  I guess some cereals have enough sugar to be about as healthy as candy…”

She laughed - well, made the breathy sounds that counted as a laugh for her - considered, and shook her head.  It was very tempting, but she didn’t have the list and couldn’t remember its contents, anyway.  She needed to find her teammates first.  Maybe, if he didn’t mind, he could help with that?  At the very least, he had the ability to call out their names.  She could whistle for them, but she doubted they’d realize it was her and pay attention.

Before she could request his help in finding her friends, a loud noise from somewhere near the back of the store made her jump, and she turned that way to try and see what had happened.  This proved to be impossible - people were rushing toward her, blocking her view, and she had to back into the aisle to get out of the way.  What had that been?  It sounded like something large had fallen.

Jamie followed her into the aisle, his gaze fixed on the crowd.  “Was that another ‘Onion incident’?  Yeesh…I hope no one got hurt,” Jamie mused.

She nodded, looking from him to the stampede of shoppers before pushing her way through the crowd toward the source of the noise.  She would have to go check that out, and maybe see if she could find her companions on the way.  It could be nothing, or it could be an attack.

By the time she reached the back of the store, most of the people in her way had cleared out, and she got a good look at what had happened.  Half the aisle - which seemed to be made of freezers - had toppled over, spilling their contents all over the walkway between the aisle and the far wall.  She caught a glimpse of a pale child at the far end of the aisle before he disappeared, and she thought she could hear angry shouting nearby.

Was this another “Onion incident”, then?

“Amethyst, _stop_!”

Blue turned to the voice, her eyes widening as Lapis charged straight at her.  The darker blue gem ducked around Blue, and an intense smell hit her, causing her to sneeze several times.

“Hey, Blue!”  Amethyst was near her by the time the sneezing fit subsided, holding air freshener.  “Oh, hey, did you make all this mess back here?  Nice work!”

Blue shook her head, wincing as Lapis’ nails dug into her shoulders.  The pressure eased after a moment, and Lapis stepped back, still keeping Blue between herself and Amethyst.  Well, if that made her feel safe, she was welcome to it.

Amethyst laughed.  “Admit it, Lapis, you smell much better now!”

Lapis glared at the purple gem.  “You made Blue sneeze, and I smelled fine before.”

“She got over it.”  Amethyst shrugged.  “And I guess, if seaweed and salt is your definition of ‘fine’.”

“Put it away,” the darker blue gem responded.

“Fine.”  Amethyst tossed the air freshener over her shoulder.  “Hey, I should show you guys around a bit while we’re here.  I can show you some of the things Steven and I used to do here when he was younger.”

“Used to do?” Lapis asked.

“Well…he’s growing up and not quite as interested anymore.”  Amethyst looked almost sad for a moment, but then she was grinning again, and she sprinted a short distance away.  “Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”

Blue and Lapis exchanged a brief glance, and then Lapis walked after Amethyst.

The purple gem’s smile widened, and she turned to blue.  “You comin’?”  Before she could answer, Amethyst grabbed Lapis’ hand and rushed off, dragging the darker blue gem behind her toward the clothing section.

But what was she doing, just standing there?!  She sprinted after them, but Amethyst was surprisingly swift for someone with such short legs - or maybe short legs helped when dodging around people and clothing racks.

Amethyst and Lapis disappeared from view, and a moment later an explosion of clothes and metal obscured her view.  What was Amethyst doing?  They were supposed to be getting food for Steven before FunMart closed for the night!

Laughter that was unmistakably Amethyst’s caught her attention, coming from somewhere to her right.  She turned and then skidded to a halt, not wanting to collide with the tower of clothes racks and soup cans in front of her.

It was a good thing she’d stopped, too.  A moment later, Onion - riding a bright blue bicycle - sped in front of her, crashing into the tower.  He jumped away seemingly without injury and ran off to amuse himself elsewhere, and she made her way around the tower to continue her search for Amethyst and Lapis.  That boy was…interesting, to put it lightly, but she could think about that later, when they were all back home with Steven’s groceries.  She did feel bad for the owner, though.  Between Onion and Amethyst, they were going to have quite a night.

She made her way between two shelves of toys - jumping when one to her left suddenly started singing - and then ran along the relatively deserted walkway behind the aisles.  For a split second, she’d been able to see a dark blue skirt before it disappeared behind a shelf.  If she kept a reasonably fast pace, maybe she could reach them before something else happened.

_Crash!_

What—

“Woo!  Way to go, Lap-Dawg!”

That was all the warning Blue had before it started raining plastic, multi-colored balls about a third her height.  Blue held an arm up to shield herself from the toys - though she doubted they’d do any real harm to her - and continued on her way as the balls bounced against the shelves, wall, floor, and each other.

At least she should still be close.  How far could they get in all this?

Moments later, she reached what seemed to be the end of the toy section.  Here, she had a decent view of the store, and it didn’t take her long to catch sight of Amethyst and Lapis.  Amethyst was pushed one of the metal carts she’d seen near the store’s entrance, while Lapis rude inside it, her wings out as though she expected to have to fly to safety at any time. 

“Hey Blue, good timing!” Amethyst paused long enough to wave at her.  “Hey, watch this!”

Lapis looked back at the purple gem.  “What are you planning?”

“You’ll see.”  Amethyst charged forward, heading right toward a soda box display. 

Blue charged after the cart.  As much as she liked and respected both gems, she doubted this would end well for any of them.

And…she was right.  The cart sailed straight ahead, toward the front doors and the soda display just in front of them.  Fortunately, Lapis took to the air, flying away from the cart and hovering near the ceiling several feet away.  Unfortunately, Amethyst continued her charge, ramming into the display and sending all the boxes of cans tumbling down around her.  Blue reached the display just as the last of the boxes fell and Amethyst pulled herself out of the wreck.

“You’re right.  That was fun.”  Lapis landed beside Blue, her expression unreadable.  Her tone was neutral, and Blue couldn’t tell if she meant it or not, but Amethyst beamed at her, apparently satisfied either way.

“ _What did you do to my display?!_ ”  Mr. Smiley - Blue recognized him from several of the places Steven liked to frequent - ran toward them, and Blue cringed at the yell and the harsh expression fixed at the three of them.

Amethyst shrugged.  “Eh.  Looks better, now.”

Mr. Smiley’s jaw worked, though he seemed to be having trouble forming sounds.  After a few moments, though, he found his voice.

“ _You_ _’re all banned from FunMart!_ ”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That had been…something.  Blue kept her eyes on her companions, who were walking in front of her along the road that would take them toward the temple.  Lapis kept her arms crossed in front of her, her expression either thoughtful or conflicted.  Amethyst’s fingers were laced together behind her head, and an amused smile was fixed on her face.  At least neither of them were angry.  She wasn’t sure how Garnet and Pearl were going to react…she supposed she’d see soon enough.

Well, she’d tried.  How was a Pearl supposed to influence a Quartz, anyway?  Back ho— in the courts, it was invariably the other way around.  And the human…he hadn’t even let her stay behind to help clean up.  It went against every instinct in her to just leave like Amethyst and Lapis had, but that had probably been the wise move.  The human seemed to get angrier the longer they stayed.

“The others aren’t gonna be happy about this,” Lapis stated as the trio of gems made their way back through the city toward the temple.

Amethyst shrugged.  “Eh, they’re used to it.  They usually don’t care.  Pearl might get a little annoyed, but she can deal.”

“Steven still has no food,” Lapis pointed out.

“He will.  We’ll just get him a ton of pizzas on the way home,” Amethyst responded.  “He’ll like that.”

Lapis seemed to consider that a moment, and then nodded.  “He does like pizza…”

Amethyst’s smile widened.  “See?  No big deal at all.”

Lapis nodded, and the two fell silent.  Blue did her best to match their pace, though part of her wanted to run ahead.  If they were getting pizzas, she’d get to see two more of her friends today, and that would be a nice way to end a disastrous outing.

“You were right, by the way,” Lapis stated after a few moments had gone by.  “That was a little fun.”

Amethyst stared at her a moment, and then startled laughing, patting Lapis on the back.  “We’ll make an Earth-lover out of you, yet!”

Lapis snorted.  “Not likely.”  But she was smiling - very faintly, but it was there enough for Blue to notice.  And…maybe she was smiling a bit, too.  It had been a little funny, seeing what Amethyst could get up to.  She would never have gotten far as a Homeworld soldier, but here - on Earth - she thrived.

And maybe - someday soon - that could be said of all of them.


End file.
